And they want to make sure their customers aren't calling them over the phone.
That's the thing
By and large this is not about developing useful new technologies: It's about beancounters seeing customer service as a cost centre to be reduced ( to as close to zero as possible).
We already see contact details hidden, obfuscated, redirected to FAQs. With messages and calls ( if you do manage to find a contact number or real email address) being ignored, bounced back to the same pages of FAQs, or passed through script monkeys who can't resolve issues.
Bots are just intended to be one more barrier to getting customer service.
The big companies have made a decision to scale up sales without scaling up service.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
